Working a fulltime job aboard your boat whilst in the Carribean or Keys?

[pjShap]

The last time I looked you could get moderate speed satellite Internet that might be good enough for work, but it was about $2,000/month. Prices increased rapidly for more than modest speeds.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I've worked from resorts ...

Been There. Done That. Did not get the T shirt.

Almost had to work from a boat once, but thankfully did not have too.

Later,
Dan

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by dannc

Been There. Done That. Did not get the T shirt.

Almost had to work from a boat once, but thankfully did not have too.

Later,
Dan

Couldn't afford to retire at 37...but thankfully was lucky to be offered a job that allowed me to work from all those locations.

Heck, company usually pays for my air tickets to the various destinations if I play it right.

Not a burden but an opportunity.

[Flod]

My experience is that it works fine if you work on contracts, quotes, following up emails etc but as soon as your tasks start to involve meetings and team interaction it gets difficult.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Flod

My experience is that it works fine if you work on contracts, quotes, following up emails etc but as soon as your tasks start to involve meetings and team interaction it gets difficult.

True. My negative Nellie post early on is from my own experience.

When I’m working, I’m all in on it. I have to give it 100% and it usually involves some degrees of stress managing everyone.

When you’re already wound up and your engine decides not up start or your dinghy outboard doesn’t work or your marine head decides to explode, it is not good on your psyche.

Land is a much easier place to work from, unless of course you live at a marina. Then there is almost no difference.

[RickG]

I've been doing it for three years now. Charleston, Marathon Boot Key Harbour, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, US Virgin Islands, and now Grenada. Do not ever tell any officials that you work from your boat; at best they will want you to pay local taxes.

As far as working on the boat, yeah I miss out on some things. Our homebase is St. John USVI and our residency is Green Cove Springs, Florida. The Admiral got a part-time job so she doesn't have to listen to my video calls. I'm pretty discipled and all my work is IT focused. I closed my office on March 13 and the entire company is working remotely. My virtual background is a photo of the background of my office. Nobody knows or cares where I am working.

In Grenada we have Cruisers WiFi, Google Fi, Digicel, and access to marina WiFi while anchored they all have their challenges. In the Bahamas we used Island WiFi. I had OTR Mobile in Marathon and the USVI until they moved from the AT&T network to T-Mobile; no good in the USVI. I need a replacement when I get back the USVIs and haven't chosen one yet. I'll be back in the US for a week this Falls, so should reset the timer for Google Fi overseas; they do not include the USVIs in their coverage. After 22GB they throttle on their unimited plan. Digicel is fast and cheap, but their biggest data plan is 10GB per month. That plan renews tomorrow and I am burning the data up today. So, yeah, I would love to have fast cheap satellite Internet.

Cheers, RickG

[gonesail]

i'm not sure i can imagine anything more boring than video conference call aboard a boat

[Lost Horizons]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I've worked from resorts and cruise ships. Also worked in the mountains of Nepal, in a camp at the foot of Kilimanjaro and on the banks of the Amazon. Never done a cross-country bicycle tour but I'm sure it's possible.

There may be some differences in exactly how you experience these different activities but it's pretty amazing what can be done with modern technology.

It is certainly possible, but you either not working full-time, or not adding good value to your organization, or not enjoying the journey. My work day is usually completely full, I hardly have time to eat lunch. By the end of the day I usually completely drained. Can I fit a 4-months trip to Alaska into it? Only in my dreams. However, for someone managing to dedicate only a few hours a week to work, such a trip is a possibility.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lost Horizons

It is certainly possible, but you either not working full-time, or not adding good value to your organization, or not enjoying the journey. My work day is usually completely full, I hardly have time to eat lunch. By the end of the day I usually completely drained. Can I fit a 4-months trip to Alaska into it? Only in my dreams. However, for someone managing to dedicate only a few hours a week to work, such a trip is a possibility.

Yeah, some of those were different from working on the boat and I cut back on hours for a week or two but I enjoy my work so, only in rare situations am I drained at the end of the day. Also, we aren't party animals, so doing a bit of work in the evening while watching TV works well to wind down.

One big difference when on the boat or in the RV, we typically have no schedule and travel days are short (usually keep it to 2-4hrs), so if something critical pops up with work, we just hang out for an extra day or leave later in the day.

We certainly enjoy the journey, though it's not the total freedom of being retired but the alternative option is to commute daily to an office and sit in a cubicle...I'll take the travel & work option any time.

[Emouchet]

My experience over a full winter in the Bahamas in 2019-2020:

- Your job must allow you to work without a fixed schedule: some day early, other late, outside of the regular 9 to 5 daily schedule, weekend...

- Squals does not wait for the end of the meeting. You must be able to pause meeting or being able to call back if something more urgent happen,

- You need strong discipline for not taking a swim while work must be done,

- You need to accept other on-board people will go to a fun activity while you will be locked on board for work, vice versa, those other people (wife?) must accept you will not be available 100% of the time because of work...

- Need to make sure you have enough power/solar/GenSet to keep laptop computer charged and running,

- If work schedule versus boat chores are not properly managed and balance, this becomes quickly exhausting. 3-4 hours a day of work while sailing from anchorage to anchorage in the Exumas was a lot to manage.

- I actually has a sweet and sour feeling at the end. Not 100% ok with the office work done, and not 100% happy about enjoying the trip and what the cruisers life has to offer.

[SV__Grace]

We are full time cruisers who live on the hook in the PNW and run our business while cruising, including lots of Zoom video calls.

First, forget wifi. I won't even waste words explaining why as you probably have already experienced wifi in today's world.

Internet via cell data plan is the way to go.

A good thing to do is to look at is how much internet data usage you require. For the two of us working most of the day online most of the week, we use @60GB, well within our 100GB data plan from ATT.

And we have backup- in addition to AT&T we have T-Mobile and Google Fi. We use T-Mobile for its unlimited streaming and that is how we watch TV at night- Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube TV.

All this is more than we need and adds up dollar wise, so we could cut back if needed and be just fine.

Here in PNW we have been able to get a signal almost everywhere. In remote anchorages in the San Juan Islands we were able to get a usable signal by running the AT&T router up the mast with an extension cord. We do have a cradle point dual SIM cell booster and have tried others, but it certainly helps to have a 65' sailboat mast!

Since we work for ourselves we can have fun on the water and on shore whenever we want and shift work around our passages, etc. I wouldn't want to be locked into a work schedule dictated by a job, but combining cruising and self employment works well for us.

[JanetGroene]

I wrote many of my books while living aboard in the Bahamas. Sometimes it was difficult to be down below when everyone else was on the dock trading scuttlebutt it was the price of admission for me. I was already a home-based freelance writer before moving aboard so it helps to know ahead of time if you can handle the discipline of (a) working and (b) making others understand that you need alone time for X number of hours per day.

[sailor2]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Hi,

have you given GoogleFi a thought?

https://fi.google.com/about/faq/

I was told that it's got unlimited world wide data for around 80$ a month?

I have Google Fi, it's great for travelling, but it's not unlimited
It will slow down after 22GB:
https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9462101?hl=en

[zboss]

Originally Posted by billyjones454

I know this is not applicable for today, but in 5 years, with the adoption of StarLink from SpaceX we may very well have high speed internet anywhere on the globe, including ocean passages, which has some exciting ramifications.

Within a year. The world already has nearly 100% geographic coverage south and north of 18 degrees but only for certain times of the day in each cell area. They are launching 60 satellites every two weeks on average to fill in the gaps and within 6 months or so there will be no time gaps. Service speed will be limited because of shared bandwidth but as they add more satellites it will create more bandwidth.

[RickG]

Starlink will be a game changer for us. We would love to get off the cellular network away from the crowds and still be online. For now we are on slow wifi or fast unlimited cellular, not really with throttling after 22GB.

Cheers, RickG